The Fall and Rise of China: Healing the Trauma of History

The Fall and Rise of China: Healing the Trauma of History

Language: English

Pages: 128

ISBN: 1780231687

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


 Today, China is a global power, home to the world’s fastest-growing economy and largest standing army—which makes it hard to believe that only 150 years ago, China was enduring defeats by Western imperial powers and neighboring Japan. For a time, the Middle Kingdom seemed like it was on the verge of being overtaken by foreign interests—but the country has quickly and ambitiously become a player on the world stage once again.

 
In this absorbing account of how China refashioned itself, Paul U. Unschuld traces the course of the country’s development in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Faced with evidence of the superiority of Western science and technology, Unschuld shows, China delivered an unsparing self-diagnosis, identifying those aspects of Western civilization it had to adopt in order to remove the cultural impediments to its own renaissance. He reveals that China did not just express its many aversions to the West as collective hatred for its aggressors; rather, the country chose the path of reason and fundamental renewal, prescribing for itself a therapy that followed the same principles as Chinese medicine: the cause of an illness lies first and foremost within oneself. In curing its wounds by first admitting its own deficiencies and mistakes, China has been able to develop itself as a modern country and a leading competitor in science, technology, and education.
 
Presenting an entirely new analysis of China’s past, this crisp, concise book offers new insights into the possibilities of what China may achieve in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

again hold political office in which he could promote his personal beliefs. More important for the Germans, of course, were the greater aims of the talks. After issuing an ultimatum the Germans were allowed to lease an area of 552 sq. km in the Bay of Kiautschou, including large and small islands, for 99 years. Soon afterward Germany officially declared the ‘German Protectorate of Kiautschou.’ The Chinese side transferred authority within the leased areas to Germany. In addition the new colonial

spirits, demons, ancestors or an abstract ‘heaven’. Instead, it is up to each person to shape the length and quality of life by keeping to the fa. This was the background against which a battle cry emerged that one day must have alarmed all those who did not want to grant the people any freedom in their lives. The battle cry was that ‘I, and not heaven, am responsible for my fate!’41 The earliest author associated with this slogan is Ge Hong, ‘the master who embraces simplicity’, baopuzi, in the

moving knowledge forward, were declared essential not least by the Song-era philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200). Maxims like this need to be specified further, and for this, too, we find ample illustrations among later authors who seem quite familiar to us. Chen Xianzhang (1428–1500), for example, stated: First Steps to a New Beginning 125 The organizational principle inherent in things can be known only by personal experience through direct observation and then consideration. Personal experience is

 49 Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (Berkeley and Los Angeles, ca, 2010), pp. 106–07. 50 Chunxiao Jing, Mit Barbaren gegen Barbaren, p. 33. 51 Ibid., pp. 15ff. 52 Spence, The Search for Modern China. 53 Ibid. 54 D.W.Y. Kwok, Scientism in Chinese Thought, 1900–1950 (New Haven, ct, and London, 1965), p. 5. 55 Chunxiao Jing, Mit Barbaren gegen Barbaren, pp. 15ff. 56 Ibid., p. 28. 57 Kwok, Scientism in Chinese Thought, p. 4. 58 Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, ‘Western Impact on China

Meiji Reform Period 58, 74–6 Mendelian genetics 159 Mengzi 102, 103 Merkel, Angela 182 Middle Kingdom 7 Mill, John Stuart 129, 151 ming, fate 109, 112 Ming Dynasty 24, 29, 37, 49, 64, 65, 75, 87 Miss World pageant 166 mission clinics 139 197 missionaries 27, 54, 55, 62, 66, 70, 78–80, 97, 138, 139 Mithridates vi of Pontus, king 39 Mo Zi 168 Mongolia, Mongolian 25, 28, 92 Mongols 24, 29, 49, 87 monism 142 Monod, Jacques 161 Montauban, General 59 Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat) 129

Download sample

Download